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Flourish to Nourish:
Reducing Malnutrition
(Theme 7)
“Malnutrition is a major health problem in India involving
under nutrition and over nutrition that are caused by imbalanced
consumption of nutrients.”
Scope of the problem:
Despite an impressive economic performance, with the gross domestic product (GDP)
rising 8.4 per cent in 2005-06 and 9.2 per cent in 2006-07,30 nutrition indicators
still reveal an unacceptable situation – contributing to India’s poor rank of 128
among 177 countries on the Human Development Index in 2007. The lack of
progress over the past decade and the current high levels of malnutrition have led to
India being recognised as having, perhaps, the worst malnutrition problem in the
world.
The data reveal an unacceptable prevalence of malnutrition in our children:
• 42.5 per cent of our children under the age of five years are underweight (low weight
for age)
• 48 per cent of our children are stunted (low height for age)
• 19.8 per cent of our children are wasted (low weight for height)
Determinants of Malnutrition:
Economic: Poor purchasing power, poverty, livelihood insecurity, major inequities in asset distribution and control.
Environmental: Lack of safe drinking water, poor sanitation, poor hygiene practices.
Figure: India, child weight-for-age and height-for-age, by age.
Health: Weak health service systems, inadequate human resources, especially in public health nutrition, weak health and nutrition educational systems.
Cultural: Inadequate knowledge of nutrition, cultural beliefs and practices that lead to poor nutrition e.g., (expelling colostrums, restricting food consumption during pregnancy or sickness), cultural shifts to prefer less micronutrient rich foods, discriminatory intra-familial food distribution, high workload for women, inadequate time available for infant and young child feeding and care.
Bringing the multi faceted programme “The Mid Day Meal Scheme” into practice that seeks to address issues of food security.
We will bring the incessant checking of the irregularity in serving meals in schools.
Caste based discrimination in serving food will be ceased. Nutritional impact of dry rations
are likely to be lower when compared to a cooked meal.
We will implant the need of providing cooked food to children among the running institutions.
To ensure that knowledge, research, education/training and public assessment systems strengthen the capacities of the organisations to participate in policy formulation and decision-making about food distribution in schools.
Implementation of “Hungry to be heard” Campaign
We will execute campaigns to tackle the scandal of people becoming malnourished while in hospital.
Ensure that hospital staff follow their own professional codes and guidance from other bodies.
We will introduce ‘protected mealtimes’
We will implement a ‘red tray’ system and ensure that it works in practice.
We will undertake thematic and comprehensive reviews to get an accurate picture of hospital mealtimes.
We will introduce compulsory monitory to tackle issues regarding the number of patients going into hospitals and coming out of them malnourished.
“Adulterated food is impure, unsafe and wholesome food”
Extent of the issue :
The Centre for Science and Environment(CSE) recently discovered our branded
edible oils are full of unhealthy trans fats. Trans fats are associated with a host of problems ranging from diabetes to heart
disease to cancer.
Consumption of fruit(ripened using carbide) can cause diarrhoea, mouth ulcers, dizziness and even cancer in the long run.
10 per cent milk samples across the country did not carry standards. Most Indians
are consuming detergents and other contamination through milk due to lack of hygiene in handling milk.
The Punjab Department of Health and Family Welfare seized 2,000 litres of synthetic milk in Patiala.
Proposition: Putting an end to adulteration
by broad array of enforcement tools
Sizing and condemning of the
products.
We will ensure detaining of
imported products.
Ensure regular sampling and
analysing.
We will bring conventional
methods of farming to practice.
We will have a regular check on
the sale of synthetic and
adulterated milk and various dairy
products.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
% of Bad Milk Samples
% of BadMilkSamples
“Access to territories and natural wealth and associated agrarian and aquatic reforms”
The notion of territory involves the
political, economic, environmental,
cultural and social rights of food
producing communities in rural areas.
Territories are essential for diverse and
sustainable food production and to
reinforce local markets, build capacities to
support safe and decent jobs, and create
the conditions for the full implementation
of food sovereignty.
For the majority of local food
providing communities, natural wealth
means much more than ‘‘productive
or natural resource’’.
Proposals for policies :
Ensure Genuine agrarian and aquatic reforms that can put an end to the massive, forced exodus from the countryside to the city, which forces cities to grow at unsustainable rates and under inhumane conditions.
Establish a strategy where in small-scale food providers should be fully and genuinely involved in formulating policies related to agriculture, fisheries, forests, water, and the environment
Recognise that pastoralism is essential for food sovereignty and that pastoralists need to be mobile in order to survive.
Reverse and prevent the privatisation of fisheries resources, such as through individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and similar systems that promote private and market-friendly property rights.
B i o f o r t i f i c a t i o n a n d diversification a s s u s t a i n a b l e s o l u t i o n s .
We will look upon the improvement the
micronutrient content in high yielding rice varieties by support
and acceleration of the ongoing research
program.
We will incorporate micronutrient density as a quality parameter in the Super Rice(new
plant type).
Ensure inclusion of energy density and
consumer preferences (e.g., satiety) as quality
parameters for released rice varieties
in future breeding programs.
Promote homestead gardening with
vegetables and fruits in view of important deficient nutrients in
the diet, such as vitamin A, vitamin C,
iron and calcium.
Vitamin A deficiency has been recognized as a nutritional problem in India. Severe stages of vitamin A deficiency cause eye damage, leading to night blindness and ultimately to blindness. Milder stages of vitamin A deficiency cause impaired immune response and increased morbidity and mortality among children and pregnant women.
FAO stresses that nutrition education is a key for developing the skills and motivation needed to eat well, and is especially important in situations where families have limited resources.
Encourage pre-natal nutrition education to prevent mother raising her children with poor eating habits, and without balanced, healthy meals.
Improve the performance of primary care providers, teachers and counsellors to address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, through improved training, communications materials, job aids, motivation and supportive supervision.
We insure teaching people how to grow crops and harvest them. We will also implement in teaching things that will help them get jobs for which they can earn money and help themselves
To encourage classroom learning linked with practical action, backed up by improvements in the school environment and family and community participation.
Policy and advocacy
Protocols and
guidelines
Human resource capacity
Outreach and
community ownership
Appendix:
• Howarth Bouis, IFPRI, “Effects on Nutrition of For-Profit Vegetable Production”
• Policies and actions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition by a Drafting Committee.
• A Leadership Agenda for Action
• Report of child nutrition survey of India
• Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India, New Delhi, ‘The National Food Security Bill, 2011 (Bill No.132 of 2011)’
• Social Views of Food Adulteration and Its Legal Provision
• Food and Agriculture Organisation: Helping to build a world without hunger